Ballerina Farm welcomes public to the dairy farm for the first time

Kamas • For the millions of people who follow Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm fame, visiting the dairy farm — where the “tradwife” influencer and her husband, Daniel, start crafting many of their dishes and products from scratch — is a far-fetched dream.

But over the next two days, fans and farm fanatics alike can make that dream come true. For the first time, Ballerina Farm is opening its barn doors to visitors and welcoming them on-site for guided tours.

On Thursday afternoon, Daniel, dressed in a brown cowboy hat and a tan Carhartt jumpsuit, with pant legs covered in mud and stray hay, welcomed a tour group to his farm.

“This is a private place for us. This is our home, and so we do enjoy just having a place that the family can gather,” he said. “We share so much digitally, online, and we just felt like the tug to say, ‘Well, we want people to also experience what a special place this is, and even if it’s in a limited fashion.’”

Ballerina Farm is as picturesque as it appears in Hannah’s videos. The 328-acre farm is nestled in Summit County’s Wasatch Mountains. A red hay barn welcomes people to the property, branded with the Ballerina Farm logo.

The dairy farm, built a year and a half ago, is home to nearly 200 cows, according to Daniel, with each animal producing around 7½ gallons of milk a day.

Ballerina Farm makes products such as yogurt, soft-serve base, protein ice cream and different types of cheese. It also sells raw milk.

Fans from near and far attended Thursday’s tour. Two families came with their six children. One little boy was decked out in a blue sweatshirt, sporting an illustration of Ballerina Farm on the back. The children asked Daniel questions, which he happily answered. Hannah was not on the tour.

Park City residents Sallie and Rod Rinderknecht came because they like learning about dairy farms, and because they think the Neelemans are a “great asset to the community.”

“We’ve been buying meat from them from the very beginning,” Sallie said. “It’s important for people to learn more about where our food comes from and how accessible it can be.”

Visitors from near and far

Founded in 2017, Ballerina Farm skyrocketed to national prominence when Hannah showcased her day-to-day farm lifestyle on social media, posting videos of items she makes from scratch.

The Neelemans, who have eight children, have amassed millions of followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Daniel Neeleman is the son of airline industry titan David Neeleman.

The dairy tours represent the next phase of the farm’s interactions with the public. In June, the couple opened their first brick-and-mortar store in Midway.

Some fans came from far away. Camille Becegato, originally from Brazil, is visiting family in Utah.

She said she’s been following Ballerina Farm on social media for a while and planned to visit the store before she returned to South America. Then she spotted an Instagram ad for the tours.

“It’s nice to see close what happens and how it works,” Becegato said, along with “all that [Hannah] has built over the years.”

“She’s a very inspiring woman,” Becegato said.

Her friend Melyssa Silva, who is also from Brazil but lives in Orem, said she was impressed by the technical aspects of the farm.

The main part of the tour consisted of walking through the sprawling barn, which is full of exposed wood and long alleyways. The cows sleep on water beds, munch on hay, and even have access to a back-scratching machine.

High-tech farming

Daniel explained the three robots that boost the dairy’s efficiency: Mr. Juno pushes feed up to the cows every half-hour; a manure cleaner stores waste in a 90-gallon tank and funnels it into compost piles; and a milking robot automatically adjusts under a cow’s udders.

The cows line up to be milked. They are rewarded with a treat of molasses, barley and grains to incentivize them to come to the machine, which keeps track of which cows are milked and when.

Though the robots are meant to increase the farm’s efficiency, Daniel said farmhands still work with the cows daily. Hope, a 14-year-old “grandma cow,” for instance, is walked to the milk robot.

The barn is notably quiet, aside from an occasional moo. He said that cows generally tend to moo when they are stressed and need to communicate that. So the Neelemans strive to keep animals happy.

The Neelemans said in an email that they hope to have more tours in the near future.

“Experiencing the dairy is experiencing Ballerina Farm,” the wrote, “taking care of the animals and land that nurture us so well, and becoming a part of that process.”

More than 100 people have signed up to visit the dairy through Saturday, according to a Ballerina Farm representative.